A gathering of some of my ideas to raise, teach, and clothe yourself and your children with not so much money, a little creativity, and a BIT of time. All paterns and instructions listed are free and I have added lots of links to other peoples ideas as well.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Favorite T shirt turned baby/toddler dress

Sewing Skill: Beginner, Cost: Nada except thread

What better way to recycle your favorite tee shirt? All you need is a currently fitting shirt of babe's and an old one of your's...or thrift store finds....this one was made of a small FAVORITE tee of mine and turned perfectly into a 2T dress for my daughter. I found as my daughter grew, all she ever wanted was stretchy cotton dresses. The ones I made her before she was born with all the beautiful layers of calico and vintage woven fabrics ended up being to stiff to flow around and twirl like fairies or the seams were "scratchy", etc...they were all wrong. Now I know, an old loved tee shirt makes a perfectly loved dress.

The tee shirt was from King Stampede out of Brooklyn ..love em. Unfortunately, this one got a stain that the dress avoided!!

1) Lay out old tee shirt flat with all seams even

2) Lay favorite fitting shirt on top of shirt, making sure your featured logo is centered

2a. For an X small T shirt or bigger kids t shirt, place shirt even with neckline, it will probobly be small enough. For a small or larger tee shirt, you will need place below the neck and will have an extra step of adding the neckline (see below)

3) Fold shirt up at 2-3" below arms'

4)Cut out around shirt 3/4" . If you are using XS, do NOT cut the neck, taper your shoulder cut to match. Do not cut prehemmed sleeves that are shorter than your pattern shirt.

5)Measure UP from BOTTOM of tee shirt:

10" for 18M, 11" for 2T, 12" for 3T,

or guess from babes measurements or a similar dress.

6)Mark and Cut strait across.

7) You now have 2 layers on the top and one tubular rectangle on the bottom. Turn top piece inside out with right sides together. Sew shoulder seams, a, tapering into neckband if applicable. Use a tight stitch and about a 1/4" Seam allowance. See notebelow for larger shirts.

8) Still right sides together, sew from finished sleeve opening to underarm in one continuous seam, b. 1/4" SA. Reinforce underarm with another row of stitching close to first. Be sure to tack ends.

9) Gather bottom piece at raw edge. By hand or machine baste. It should be the same width as top "c" edge.

10) Place both "c" edges RIGHT sides together with raw edges even. The easiest way to do this is to put the shirt part inside of the skirt.

11) Stitch with a tight stitch. Stitch again close to first row. 1/4-1/2" seam allowance. Be sure you catch all the gathers.

Turn and done!

NOTE: For a larger shirt, you will need to line up pattern shirt UNDER the neckband. Use you pattern to cut a new neck (lower in the front). Remove original neckband, shorten, and reapply to your new cut neck after finishing as above. If sleeves of large shirt are longer than your pattern shirt, you will need to cut and then hem them.